PatsyRamsey.com

Did she "come to" because of the ovarian cancer and radical hysterectomy? Or would she have done so anyway?

I have always empathetically thought that the ovarian cancer was a trigger here, but I have no "psych" education at all.

 

The "coming to" has to do with a natural process that occurs in midlife to men in the late thirties to early forties and women about 5 yrs earlier. At this time the social persona and outward adaptation begins to fade and the opportunity for inner development starts. Our culture does not understand, and even denegrates the inner life, so this process is not known about, is not prepared for and thus comes as a destablizing shock that we call the midlife crisis.

Patsy's illness was definitely a contributing factor. Anything happening in the body or in the family or workplace that undermines a person's identity will serve to destablize the psyche. In Patsy's case her health was deteriorating, her looks were threatened, the daughter she identified with was going from infancy to childhood, the threshold of her fortieth birthday was coming and the need for a repressed inner life to be lived out all began to happen in a short period of time.

The passage from young adult to midlife adult or from midlife to old age is a big topic in psych books these days and it is treated with mythic imagery and dream analysis. The journey is treated as full of potential for growth, but the caveats of going inward are firmly stated. The crime that Patsy commited is a good example of what can go wrong when a repressed life begins to emerge on it's own and a person has no where to go but to a society that is ignorant of and hostile to the dark side. It is for these reasons that I had empathy for Patsy.

 

Thanks.

 

Thus, why it is that John Ramsey said he was concerned about what Burke might start going through when Burke turns 40. It could well be that the last thing John Ramsey wants is for Burke to "come to" and start looking inward, to begin to evaluate, from a mature adult perspective, the life and circumstances he was living through in the Ramsey household.

 

Paradox, I don't understand what this means. Don't we develop our inner selves as we go through all our life?

I thought midlife crisis is when we realize we're not going to live forever.

I'm desperately literal, I suppose, but this:

...makes me think of Darth Vader.

Seriously, what does that mean? That nobody around Patsy understood how psycho her behavior was prior to the death of her child, because as a society we don't deal with the bad? And she was too embarrassed to tell anyone something was wrong, and would not have found support?

This is fascinating to me.

 

I believe that Paradox is a Jungian therapist (correct me if I'm wrong). To understand what is being said, you really have to read more about the Jungian approach. It deals much more with mythic themes, dreams, quests, etc. than the practical approach of "I'm getting older, I'm no longer so hot, and I can see my own death as a possibility" mid-life crisis. It's pretty complicated and kind of like talking to an IT person, you get more muddled up the more they try to explain!

Heymom

 

Knowledge of what the dark side is and how to relate to it is fundamental to Gnosticism and Jungian psychology.

If we live in a healthy environment, we are taught to bring what is in us out, as well as learn to add from the outside. We gain our identity by assimilating behaviors that we see in others that match behavior patterns that are inherantly in us. By assimilating some behaviors and rejecting others we create the shadow. Lost and undeveloped parts of our personalities fall into the shadow. This is normal. And most of what we are actually lies deep in the unconscious: our entire human history.

The personal shadow is always close to us, but like an ocean beach, it has access to the depths. Our inner life, and the development of it that you speak of, may be familiar, but it can also be strange and distant, to the point that experience of it is sensed as something coming from far outside the body and the 5 senses. It is often experienced as contact with God or some mythic figure. This is usually a pathological experience. But theoretically, it can be developed consciously, as in Jungian active imagination.

You are absolutely right that the midlife crisis can be started with the realization of mortality. Even though we know about it all our lives, the actual experience of the inevitable decline is destablizing. The shock that we have to leave the childhood Eden is usually worse than realizing we have to leave life itself.

 

I think Patsy's condition was made more difficult by the fact that her split-off personality factors (shadow) had gained a degree of autonomy as in MPD/DID.

It is hard enough for all of us to try to fit our lives into the narrow confines of our social personas and to live a life "in the light" without falling to our weak side, our dark side. It is another thing when that side pursues us.

Patsy really packed it on, trying to live in the light, didn't she? And she succeeded to a high degree. I think she created quite a shadow along the way, with the help of HER mother. Not only was she pursued by it, but I think she was actually interested in it as well. This interest took the form of crime movies and books.

I think she tried to alert people to her condition. I think she resented John for not seeing her. I think the ransom note was an attempt at explaining what was going on.

 

Ok, now I'm totally lost.

So you're saying she was aware of this split in her personality and interested in her "dark side"? What was her "dark side" anyway? A split personality? Was her "light side" a persona she knowingly took on?

Sorry, I'm not to good at this psych stuff. :stupid1:

 

"Interested" might be a misstatement. That would mean she would turn toward it. Maybe it was more like she gave way to it from time to time. It may have intruded on it's own. People have all kinds of relationships to their shadow.

 

I understand all this, and am on board with the direction of this theory.

That said, look at it this way. You know how sometimes you yourself or a person you are talking to will do or say something very uncharacteristic, and then turn around and say, "I have no idea where that came from."? That is the shadow coming out to play. Doing something very much outside of one's usual presented persona is when a person's "dark side" has come out. It is my understanding that this most often happens under a build up of stress such as, say, the stress of having one's daughter entertain for a mall full of people the day before entertaining a houseful of guests, which itself is just two days before a series of major social events is to begin and not let up for another two weeks.

 

hahaha I can think of a few times my "dark side" has jumped out to surprise me. I once head-butted hubby in the chest in a game of KICK BALL, for heaven's sake. HAVE NO IDEA WHY THAT HAPPENED. Had NO conscious thought whatsoever that I AM GOING TO HEAD BUTT HUBBY. He just kicked the stupid kid's ball and next thing I know, I have a neck injury and the Fam is rolling on the ground laughing.

Hey, I wasn't even MAD at him! :viking:

And never once in my life have I ever had the thought that I wanted to head butt someone.

I get this theory, though. It's as good as any. Did Patsy's "dark side" snap out of her and she struck out in a moment of misdirected negative energy? Could be.

But what was underlying that caused the explosion of that negative energy. I had half a century of marriage underlying mine. I also understand the frustrations of raising children, no matter how wonderful you are, they are, or life is.

There still has to be a reason Patsy would have felt the need to shove that paintbrush up JonBenet that night. It wasn't the first time JonBenet had been sexually abused, whether it was Patsy acting out subconscious hostility or repressed memories of abuse enacted on Patsy when she was a child.


Patsy was wrapped too tight, I believe that. A person who can lie so handily, pathologically, to anyone and everyone, barely batting an eye...that's a person who has a life of experience doing so and a lot to hide.

And then there's John. He, too, can lie and smile at you the whole time. We've seen him do it often. His first wife saw him do it for years. His mistress saw him do it as well. He told us about his first attraction to Patsy in an Atlanta apartment, when she was LYING to his mistress for him while he hid behind a door and watched. THAT turned John on.

Two pathological liars who combined to claw their way to the American Dream....

Really interesting, Paradox. Do tell us more.

 

My guess is that your Hubby made a remark about having sex with your sister: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13936455/

Don't despair KK, your violent outburst may have you puzzled, but it also qualifies you to play professional soccer in France!
:floor:

 

Hey, we're trying to have a serious conversation here. If we need comic relief Greenleaf will break in and tell us to go sit in the corner for a while.

 

Oh good. I was thinking about looking for a job....

 

I guess your experience might be similar to French soccer star Zinedine Zidane in his very last soccer game in this year's World Cup. An Italian player said something to him and BAM! Zidane walks up and slams him in the head. What a way to end his stellar soccer career...And his team lost the game on top of it.

Edit: I see the link above was all about that incident. Having watched it in real time, I still cannot believe it happened. What an idiot.
Heymom :crosseyed :fight:

 

That always seemed to be a very strange comment to me for John to make about his son.
It does seem to hint that the ideas Paradox mentioned are on the right track because the comment makes sense in that context.

 

KoldKase:

Where can I read this juicy tidbit? I seem to have missed it. John and Patsy hooked up in late 1970s Atlanta, which I have survived to tell you was a hopping singles scene. I cannot imagine Patsy surviving long in that scene before she had to bag a husband. She was pretty and vivacious but I don't think she would have liked serial dating.

I have always wondered, btw, if I ever ran into Johnny at Harrison's or any of the other singles joints. I actually waitressed/tended bar at a couple of places - but I fortunately do not remember a bearded business dude with a gold card. If I had met Patsy, I probably would have just shuddered and turned away.


Paradox:

Continuing my education here, what is MPD/DID? - multiple personality disorder? I have read that this isn't as likely as it was once thought to be, and that some shrinks (can I call them shrinks?) don't believe it exists. So you believe that Patsy was a "Three Faces of Eve"/"Sybil" personality. I suppose she tells us that when she says "We are a group of individuals that represent a small foreign faction."

Our dark side pursuing us - is this religious or psychological? What motivates it to pursue? Anger left over from childhood? And if she was interested in her dark side, is that because it was more thrilling and forbidden, like the cliches say?

How would Patsy have tried to alert people? I've read her Christmas letters, but all I got out of them was that she was busy and tired, and bragged way too much about success. Hodges (I guess he's from an opposing school from you) sees references to inadequacy about sexuality in them - where she talks about John's boat "Miss America" (Patsy wasn't Miss America) for instance. But from this light/dark/multiple point of view, when Patsy writes about being a busy mom rushing about, she is actually telling us that she is managing a throng of personalities inside her?

Would Patsy have said - John, we've got a problem here? I don't think she did.

OK, anger at John for not seeing her - did she consciously know she was f-ed up or was this in her subconscious? I see in the ransom note where she hands it all over to him - It's up to you now John - and then the Victory! We've always wondered - Victory over what? - so Paradox, you are telling us that the Victory! was in finally releasing the dark side and showing it to John, and writing that ransom note, which psycho-Patsy thought eloquently expressed her truths.

Yowza. Too much.

 

Ya, that's a lot.

The Victory in psychological terms is the ego developing enough strength and autonomy that it can participate with the four functions of consciousness; thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition, and gain disctinction from the dissociating effects of the unconscious. The four functions are aspects of two major functions; rational/decision making (thinking-feeling) and irrational/response (sensation/intuition). This is what morality is all about: mediating response and decision making. This is graphed as an equilateral cross with the two lines ( horizontal = rational function, vertical = irrational function) and the four ends representing the four functions. Thus the Victory is saving by the cross.

The unconscious is the dark side. It is full of complexes and archtypes. Those things have autonomy, they can move on their own and influence us. In order to manage the influence of the unconscious we need to develop consciousness. We need to become moral. This is what the Islamic jihad really is; translated as moral struggle.

The ransom note is childish because it was written by a regressed split-off persona in the image of Sandy Stranger and the Brodie set, a group of adolescents. The "Mr. Ramsey" that the note was written to was more than the man himself. It was a parental figure, maybe even God. Patsy confused her identity with JonBenet. In her regressed state she could have confused John with "father" and like children do, she needed attention from the parent.

 

Everyone, listen up to Paradox because this stuff is true.

Oh, and how about this tidbit from DOI? Watch as Patsy begins to refer to herself in the third person, never a good sign of a healthy integrated personality (also note that when listing her self-definitions, her very first priority is to see herself as a daughter, not a mother):